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Axis Corporate hosted an executive breakfast with the participation of Carlos Torres Vila, BBVA, CEO who shared his experience on the digital transformation of BBVA, with an audience of 200 attendees, at the Palace Hotel in Madrid.

Axis Corporate President, Casimiro Gracia, moderated a discussion on the main challenges for the financial sector and the process of change towards the digitalisation of the market.

Casimiro Gracia highlighted four important factors that face the Spanish financial sector in the coming years:

An environment of low interest rates.

The emergence of new digital competitors.

The difficulty of being profitable with overburdensome regulation

Difficulties restoring consumer confidence.

Before inviting views from the audience, Casimiro Gracia stated that the current financial market is facing changes in consumer habits and the gradual emergence of new competitors. How financial institutions respond to this challenge, will define a new banking reality.

“An environment marked by the emergence of new technologies that has forced companies in the sector to embark on ambitious processes of digitalization to respond to the demands of the market” – concluded Gracia.

Carlos Torres Vila stated that “BBVA aspires to be the trusted bank for its clients by helping them make the best financial decisions, with personalised advice” and added that data is the key input to making these best decisions. In this sense, consent is necessary and, for this, “it will be fundamental to generate a circle of trust with the client,” Torres said.

The CEO of BBVA then explained to the attendees of this forum that the Group was one of the first to understand what the impact of the technology meant for the business.

Data is Key

BBVA believes that the bank needs to evolve to digital in the future. Carlos Torres Vila also emphasized that data will be the key raw material for decision making. “It will be fundamental to generate a circle of trust with the client,” Torres said. In this sense, if intelligence is applied to the data, value-added recommendations can be generated that will increase the confidence of the clients, thus completing the circle. BBVA will be moving towards an office model that supports the digital transformation. Today, many of its clients are digital but they also go to the branch (in what Carlos Torres Vila called a hybrid model). Digitalization and advice for operations with greater added value are promoted.

Digital Future for BBVA

The bank aspires to have 25 million digital customers worldwide in the coming years, wherein they predict that more than half of which will use the mobile banking functionality. As part of its initiatives to move to a more digitized process, BBVA is making profound changes to its corporate culture. These initiatives have recently earned BBVA the “Global Innovator in Banking 2017” award by European Financial Management & Marketing Association (EFMA).